V. I. Lenin

The Election in St. Petersburg{1}

Published:Proletary, No. 47-48, September 5 (18), 1909.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1974],

      Moscow,Volume 16,

      pages24-28.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Theelection in St. Petersburg has been fixed for
September 21. The conditions which the workers’ party has to con tend with
in this election are extraordinarily difficult. But it is an event of the
highest importance and all Social-Democrats must exert every effort in the
forthcoming election campaign, which in some-respects has already begun.

Theelection is taking place in an atmosphere of the most rabid
reaction, with the counter-revolutionary fury of the tsarist government
gang raging in full force. All the more important then is it that this
reaction should he opposed by the nomination put forward by the
Social-Democratic Party, the only party which even from the platform of the
Black-Hundred Third Duma has succeeded in raising its voice, declaring its
unshakable socialist convictions, reiterating the slogans of the glorious
revolutionary struggle, and unfurling the republican banner in the face of
the

Octobrist-Black-Hundred{2}heroes of counter-revolution and the liberal

(Cadet){3}ideologists and defenders of counter-revolution.

Theelection is taking place in conditions which entirely preclude the
participation of the broad mass of the working class: the workers are
excluded from the voters’ lists, the ranks of the voters have been
decimated by the triumphant aristocratic gang who carried out the coup
d’état of June 3,

1907.{4}All the more important is it that there should come out before
this audience, least capable of sympathising in general with the ideas of
Social-Democracy, a party which combines the fight for socialism with the
fight for a consistent and drastic democratic revolution in a bourgeois
country. However restricted, however hampered the workof the Social-Democratic Party has been of late among the working masses,
this work has been carried on without a break. Hundreds of workers’ groups
and circles are upholding the traditions of the Social-Democratic Party,
continuing its cause, training new proletarian fighters. Through their
deputies, their agitators and their delegates, working-class
Social-Democrats will now come forward before the mass of petty-bourgeois
voters and remind them of the aims of real democracy which have been
forgotten by the bourgeois-democratic parties and groups.

Theelection is taking place in a situation where the Social-Democratic
Party and all working-class organisations whatsoever have been totally
outlawed, where it is utterly impossible to hold meetings of workers, where
the workers’ press is totally banned, where the “opposition” is (through
police measures) entirely monopolised by the Cadet Party, which has
prostituted itself by a series of unprecedented acts of flunkeyism in the
Black Duma and has helped the autocracy to raise money in Europe to spend
on prisons and gallows, which has helped to stage the comedy of a
constitutional autocracy for the benefit of the European capitalists. All
the more important is it that this Cadet monopoly, fenced around by a
forest of gallows, and “earned” by the unlimited grovelling of the
liberals to tsarism, should bebroken, broken at all costs, in
full view of the masses who see the election, hear about the election, and
who are following the chances of the candidates and the results of the
election. If the most important thing for the bourgeois politicians in all
countries, from the Russian Cadets to the “free-thinkers” of Germany or
the bourgeois-democratic “radicals” in France, is to achieve an immediate
success, to gain a parliamentary seat, the most important thing for a
socialist party is propaganda and agitation among the masses, the most
important thing is to advocate the ideas of socialism and of a consistent,
self-denying struggle for complete democracy. And the success of this
propaganda is very far from being measured solely by the number of votes,
hand-picked under the law of June 3, which was passed by the gentlemen of
the nobility.

Lookat our Cadet press: with what amazing effrontery it uses its
monopoly, earned by the accommodatingness of Milyukov and protected by

Stolypin.{5}In its leading articleof August 1Rech{6}says: “No one has any doubts as to the outcome of the
St. Petersburg election.... If the nomination of

Kutler,{7}who was one of the most authoritative deputies in the Second Duma,
is fixed, the election victory will be even more imposing.”  To be sure it
will! What could be more “imposing” than a victory over the “Lefts” who have
been “disqualified” by the Black-Hundred coup d’état? What could be
more imposing than a victory over socialism which has to propagate its old
ideals in the illegal press and illegal labour organisations, a victory of
“democrats” whose democracy fits in easily with the Stolypin Constitution? Who
can there be more “authoritative” in the eyes of the petty bourgeois, the
philistine, in the eyes of the cowed citizen of Russia, thanex-ministerMr. Kutler? For the party of “people’s freedom” theprestigeof a deputy in the Duma is measured by his prestige in the
eyes of Romanov, Stolypin and Co.

“Wepresume,” continuesRechmajestically, “that on this occasion
there will be no purposeless splitting of votes between the progressive
candidates as well. That is the sense of a statement made by V. V. Vodovozov,
one of the representatives of the ‘Left bloc’.”

Thislittle tirade reflects the whole nature of our Cadets as a drop of water
reflects the sun. Splitting the votes is “to no purpose” (the Cadets no longer
say it is dangerous in face of the Black Hundreds, because the stupid liberal
fable of the Black-Hundred danger has been convincingly refuted by the
revolutionary Social-Democrats and by events), why “to no purpose”, gentlemen?
Because our manwill not get in, that is the first and last argument of
the Cadets. Indeed, this is anOctobristargument, dear opponents of
Octobrism; this is the argument ofsubmissionto the law of June
3,. the very same loving submission and joyful obedience for which you reproach
the Octobrists! Your essential nature is such that prior to an election, when
you come before the voters, before the crowd, you accuse the Octobrists of being
incapable of carrying out a policy based on principle, of uttering opportunist
phrases about “purposelessness”, but at elections,beforethe
authorities, before the tsar and Stolypin, you pursue the very same policy as
the Octobrists. Since it is “purposeless” to vote against the budget—we
shall vote for the budget. Since it is “purposeless” to uphold the ideals ofthe revolution and freedom—we shall vilify them, we shall publishVekhi,{8}we shall throw mud at the revolution, we shall hire as many
renegades as possible—Izgoyevs, Galiches, Struves and so forth—to
demonstrate our renunciation of the revolution. Since it is “purposeless” to
fight against the autocracy receiving support from foreign capital—we shall
help the autocracy to negotiate loans, we shall send Milyukov as a footman on
the step of the royal coach of Nicholas the Bloody.

Butif the phrase about an ideological struggle at the elections being
“purposeless” is a true indication of the “ideological” nature of the
Cadets, the next phrase is a model of downright election trickery. Exercising
the monopoly of “His Majesty’s

Opposition”,{9}Rechslandered, firstly, the Social-Democrats, who
have never anywhere declared against splitting votes (and who—this is very
important—wonoverthe Trudoviks to their leadership in the famous
Left bloc, won them over by the firm determination to put up a Social-Democratic
candidate atall costs), and, secondly, the

Trudovik{10}Vodovozov.

Apartfrom the leading article, there is an item in the issue of August 1
imputing to Vodovozov a statement that the electors have already declared for
the Cadets, and that the Trudoviks must either vote for the Cadets or
abstain. Only in its issue of August 8 does the organ of the party of “people’s
freedom” find an odd corner (underneath the “Country Life” column) for a
letter from Mr. Vodovozov, who protests that he “never said” the
words ascribed to him.Rechis not at all abashed by this and goes on
to argue the point with Vodovozov. The deed is done, the reader has been
deceived, the monopoly of the press permitted by the Stolypins has been utilised
and that is all that matters. Finally in the issue of August 9 there is a couple
of lines on the Social-Democratic candidate Sokolov and on the fact that many
Trudoviks propose to vote for him. All that was reported in the leading article
of August 1 concerning the Lefts proves to have been a canard....

Thedifficulties of the task confronting the Social-Democrats in St. Petersburg
will not dismay them but will make them redouble their efforts. Not only all
Party organisations, every workers’ circle, every group of Social-Democraticsympathisers in any section of the community—even if this group consists
of two or three persons and is cut off from active political work, In the way
that only Russian citizens can be cut off from politics in the epoch of the
Stolypin Constitution —everyone can and must take part in the Social-
Democratic election campaign. Some can draw up and distribute the election
manifestoes of the Social-Democrats; others can help to circulate the Duma
speeches of the Social-Democrats; some can organise a canvass of the electors
in order to propagate Social-Democratic ideas and explain the aims of the
Social-Democrats in the election campaign; others will speak at meetings of
voters or at private meetings; still others can cull a bouquet of extracts from
Cadet literature and Cadet speeches that will cure all honest democrats of any
desire to vote for the Cadets; others.., but it is not for us in a newspaper
published abroad to point out ways and means of agitation, ways &nd means
will be found locally, in St. Petersburg, a hundred times richer, livelier and
more varied. The members of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma can, by
virtue of their position, render particularly valuable services to the election
campaign in St. Petersburg; here the Social-Democratic deputies have a
particularly useful and particularly grateful part to play. No administrative
prohibitions, no police traps, no confiscations of Social-Democratic literature,
no arrests of Social-Democratic agitators can prevent the workers’ party from
doing its duty, namely, to make full use of the election campaign to spread
among the masses the whole, undiluted programme of the socialist proletariat,
the vanguard in the Russian democratic, revolution.

P.S. This article had been sent to press when we read inRech. of
August 13 the following extremely important news item: “On August 11 the
Trudoviks held their first meeting devoted to the Duma election.... It was
unanimously decided to support the candidature of the Social-Democrat Sokolov,
andit was resolved not to make this support depend on any political
obligations.” Needless to say, the Social-Democrats could not accept
support on any other conditions.

{1}September 21 (October 4), 1909, was the date fixed for the by-election
to the Third Duma to replace the St. Petersburg deputy, the Cadet
A. M. Kolyubakin, who had been expelled from the Duma.

{2}TheParty of Octobrists(Union of October Seventeenth) was
found ed in Russia after the issue of the tsar’s Manifesto of October 17,
1905. It was a counter-revolutionary party which represented and defended
the interests of the big bourgeoisie and landlords, whose enterprises were
on capitalist lines. It was headed by the well known industrialist and
Moscow house-owner, A. I. Guchkov, and the big landlord
M. V. Rodzyanko. The Octobrists supported the foreign and domestic policy
of the tsarist government.

BlackHundreds—reactionary, monarchist gangs set up by the
tsarist police to combat the revolutionary movement. They murdered
revolutionaries, assaulted progressive intellectuals, and organised
anti-Jewish pogroms.

{3}Cadets—members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the
chief party of the Russian liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie. The Cadet Party
was founded in October 1905, its membership including representatives of
the bourgeoisie, Zemstvo functionaries from among the landlords and
bourgeois intellectuals. Prominent leaders of the Cadets included
P. N. Milyukov, S. A. Muromtsev, V. A. Maklakov, A. I. Shingaryov,
P. B. Struve, F. I. Rodichev. In order to deceive the working people the
Cadets falsely called themselves the party of “people’s freedom”, but in
reality they never went beyond the demand for a constitutional
monarchy. They considered their main task to be the fight against the
revolutionary movement and they tried to persuade the tsar and the feudal
land lards to share power with them. During the First World War the Cadets
actively supported the tsarist government’s foreign policy of
conquest. During the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917 they
tried to save the monarchy. The Cadets in the bourgeois Provisional
Government pursued a counter-revolutionary policy favourable to the U.S.,
British and French imperialists. After the victory- of the Great October
Socialist Revolution the. Cadets became Irreconcilable enemies of Soviet
power and participated, in all the armed counter-revolutionary actions and
campaigns of the interventionists. When the interventionists and
whiteguards were defeated, the Cadets fled abroad, where they continued
their anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary activity.

{4}Thecoup d’état of June 3, 1901was carried out by the
tsarist government, which dissolved the Second Duma and published a new
electoral law that reduced severalfold the already small representation of
workers and peasants in the Duma. The law deprived a large part of the
population of Asiatic Russia of electoral rights and reduced by half the
representation of the people of Poland and the Caucasus. Black Hundreds and
Octobrists predominated in the Third Duma, which was elected on the basis
of this law, and opened in November 1907.

{5}Milyukov, P. N.—leader of the Cadet Party.

Stolypin,P. A.—a reactionary statesman of tsarist Russia
and a big landlord, Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Minister
of the Interior from 1906 to 1911. He headed the regime of savage political
reaction after the suppression of the 1905-07 Revolution and organised
bloody acts of repression against the revolutionary workers and peasants.

{6}Rech(Speech) —a daily newspaper, the central organ
of the Cadet Party, which was published in St. Petersburg from February
1906.  It was closed down by the Revolutionary Military Committee of the
Petrograd Soviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917.

{7}Kutler, N. N.—a prominent leader of the Cadet Party.

{8}Vekhi—a Cadet collection of articles by N. Berdayev,
S. Bulgakov, P. Struve, M. Herschensohn and other representatives of the
counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie, published in Moscow in the
spring of 1909. In articles on the Russian intelligentsia these writers
tried to discredit the revolutionary-democratic traditions of the finest
representatives of the Russian people, including V. G. Belinsky and
N. G. Chernyshevsky, vilified the revolutionary movement of 1905, and
thanked the tsarist government for having, “with its bayonets and jails”,
saved the bourgeoisie from “the fury of the people”. The writers called
upon the intelligentsia to serve the autocracy. Lenin compared the
programme ofVekhi, as regards both philosophy and publicist
matters, to that of the Black-Hundred newspaperMoskovskiye
Vedomosti, and he called the symposium an “encyclopaedia of liberal
renegacy”, nothing but a veritable torrent of reactionary mud poured on
the head of democracy (see p. 123–31 of this volume).

{9}The expression “His Majesty’s Opposition” was used by the leader of
the Cadet Party, P. Milyukov. In a speech at a luncheon given by the Lord
Mayor of London on June 19 (July 2), 1909, Milyukov declared: “So long as
there is in Russia a legislative chamber which controls the budget, the
Russian opposition will remain the opposition of His Majesty and not to His
Majesty.” (RechNo. 167, June 21 [July 4], 1909).

{10}Trudoviks, Trudovik group—the group of petty-bourgeois
democrats in the State Dumas, consisting of peasants and intellectuals of aNarodnik persuasion. The Trudovik group was formed in April 1906 from peasant
deputies in the First Duma.

TheTrudoviks put forward demands for the removal of all social-estate
and national restrictions, the democratisation of Zemstvo and urban
self-government, and the establishment of universal suffrage for elections
to the Duma. The agrarian programme of the Trudoviks was based on Narodnik
principles of equalitarian use of the land: the formation of a national
fund from state, crown and church lands, and also from privately owned
lands if the size of the holding exceeded the established labour norm. It
was envisaged that there would be compensation for the privately owned land
to be nationalised. Lenin pointed out that the typical Trudovik was a
peasant who was “not averse to a compromise with the monarchy, to settling
down quietly on hisownplot of land under the bourgeois system;
but at the present time his main efforts are concentrated on the fight
against the landlords for land, on the fight against the feudal state and
for democracy” (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 229).

Inthe Duma the Trudoviks wavered between the Cadets and the
Social-Democrats. These waverings were due to the class nature of the small
peasant farmers. Nevertheless, owing to the fact that the Trudoviks
represented the mass of the peasants, the Bolsheviks in the Duma pursued a
policy of concluding agreements with them on particular questions for a
joint struggle against the tsarist autocracy and the Cadets. In 4917, the
Trudovik group merged with the Popular Socialist Party and actively
supported the bourgeois Provisional Government. After the October Socialist
Revolution the Trudoviks sided with the bourgeois counter-revolution.